Teen Found Dead Days Before She Was To Testify Against Alleged Rapist

Mujey Dumbuya was scheduled to testify against a man who allegedly raped her in April.

A 16-year-old girl from Michigan was set to testify against a man who allegedly raped her, but before she could do that, she went missing. Days later, the teenager was found dead in a wooded area in Michigan.

Now, the alleged rapist, Quinn Anthony James, is reportedly a person of interest in her death.

Mujey Dumbuya had been missing since Jan. 25. Her family reported about her disappearance after the girl didn’t return back home from school.

After a week, she was found dead in a wooded area 50 miles away in Kalamazoo, a city in southern Michigan.

Her death was ruled as a homicide.

Dumbuya’s body was discovered wearing a black Columbia jacket, a white and pink T-shirt with a print of Cinderella's face on the front, blue jeans and pink Nike tennis shoes. However, her right shoe was missing.

Two months before she mysteriously disappeared, Dumbuya told police that James, who was an employee of the school district, sexually assaulted her in a parking lot near the school.

According to police records, Dumbuya said James told her, “There is something about you. I could stop, but I just can't,” before the attack.

According to the late teenager, James had forced her to have sex with him multiple times and it all started a year ago. She was 15 at the time.

The rapist had already been charged with three counts of criminal sexual conduct with a minor. This was the offender’s fourth offence, so the prosecutors charged him as habitual offender facing a mandatory 25 year sentence.

The 42-year-old was arrested in November after he admitted to investigators he had sex with a teenage girl outside Ridge Park Charter Academy, where Dumbuya went to school, but claimed it was consensual.

James was ordered to stay away from Dumbuya, who was scheduled to testify against him in April.

Dumbuya and her family informed school officials of the assault in mid-November, Superintendent Michael Zoerhoff said in a statement to the BuzzFeed News. According to him, the alleged assault took place when school was not in session.

In 2011, James was hired to work on the school district’s ground as maintenance crew. Even though, he was a convicted felon at the time and had convictions of past crimes for armed robbery and possessing a weapon while being in prison, school officials said they were not aware of his past criminal history.

"However, when the criminal charges came to the attention of the school leadership, the district took immediate action to investigate, interview and subsequently terminate the employment of Mr. James," the superintendent said. "His failure to be forthcoming around the assault charges and acts of misconduct violating Board and District policies and state laws led to his dismissal."

Authorities arrested James on Feb. 1 in correlation with another teenage rape case from 2014. The Kent County Sheriff's Office tried to charge James with rape, but the prosecutor reportedly denied the case.

James is currently being held in jail on a $500,000 bond.

Coming back to his latest crimes, when Dumbuya, the oldest of three siblings, went missing her family suspected her life was in danger and notified authorities.

"She didn't run away what would make her run away?" her aunt, Haja Corneh, said last week. "She has a family that loves her, she has everybody around her that loves her. What would make her run away?"

Dumbuya, was "looking forward to graduation next year," according to a GoFundMe page set up to collect donations to pay for her funeral expenses.